The council is slowly restoring confidence in its data protection systems after a string of major blunders.

The latest audit by the Information Commissioner’s Office upgraded the authority’s performance in three areas to one high assurance assessment and two reasonable assurance assessments.

Just under a year ago the rating stood at one reasonable and two limited assurance assessments.

However, councillors will be warned there is no room for complacency.

Last September the ICO published a scathing attack on the council’s data protection systems, highlighting 41 recommendations for improvement.

It came on the back of several high profile breaches highlighted by the appearance of personal details of some 900 staff, including names, salary information and service history, on a public website for several weeks.

On another occasion details of more than 2,000 childminders were mistakenly sent out in an email.

And the authority reported itself to the Information Commissioner when confidential social work documents relating to convicted criminals, their crimes, court orders and their victims were left lying in a Dumfries car park.

At the time, social work boss John Alexander said the documents had been dropped next to the social worker’s car and were recovered, within twenty minutes, from the police station.

Police later said the files were found by two tourists in the Whitesands and carried across town to the Cornwall Mount headquarters where they were handed in.

Chief executive service boss Alex Haswell will tell next week’s meeting of the audit and risk management committee that the ICO’s overall conclusion “is that the council’s data protection compliance has progressed”

But he adds: “The council will now maintain its focus, without being complacentof the need to ensure consistent and competent handling of personal dataand data security requirements, through the development of a monitoring plan, to ensure continued compliance with the actions which have been put in place.”